Erudition - Shopping2000.com

The Lexicographer's Dilemma: The Evolution of 'Proper' English, from Shakespeare to South Park , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 603min

In its long history, the English language has had many lawmakers - those who have tried to regulate or otherwise organize the way we speak. The Lexicographer's Dilemma poses a pair of questions: What does proper English mean? And who gets to say what's right? Our ideas of correct or proper English have a history, and today's debates over the state of the language - whether about Ebonics in schools, the unique use of language in a South Park episode, or split infinitives in the Times - make sense only in historical context. As historian Jack Lynch has discovered, every rule has a human history, and the characters who populate his narrative are as interesting for their obsessions as for their erudition. Charting the evolution of English with wit and intelligence, he provides a rich historical perspective that makes us appreciate a new the hard-won standards we now enjoy. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Anthony Gettig. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/adbl/009661/bk_adbl_009661_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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The Time Traveller's Guide to Regency Britain

'Excellent... Mortimer's erudition is formidable' The Times A time of exuberance, thrills, frills and unchecked bad behaviour...Ian Mortimer turns to what is arguably the most-loved period in British history - the Regency, or Georgian England. This is the age of Jane Austen and the Romantic poets; the paintings of John Constable and the gardens of Humphry Repton; Britain's military triumphs at Trafalgar and Waterloo. It was perhaps the last age of true freedom before the arrival of the stifling world of Victorian morality. And like all periods in history, it was an age of many contradictions - where Beethoven's thundering Fifth Symphony could premier in the same year that saw Jane Austen craft the delicate sensitivities of Persuasion. This is history at its most exciting, physical, visceral - the past not as something to be studied but as lived experience. This is Ian Mortimer at the height of his time-travelling prowess. 'Ian Mortimer has made this kind of imaginative time travel his speciality' Daily Mail

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Defiant Joy: The Remarkable Life & Impact of G. K. Chesterton , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 505min

You may be aware that G. K. Chesterton authored influential Christian biographies and apologetics. But you may not know the larger-than-life Gilbert Keith Chesterton himself - not yet. Equally versed in poetry, novels, literary criticism, and journalism, he addressed politics, culture, and religion with a towering intellect and a soaring wit. Chesterton engaged his world through the written word. He carried on lively, public discussions with the social commentators of his day, continually challenging them with civility, humility, erudition, and his ever-sharp sense of humor. Today's listener can find the same treasures, for as Chesterton said, "What a man can believe depends upon his philosophy, not upon the clock or the century." In Kevin Belmonte's fresh new biography, you'll get to know the real G. K. Chesterton and his literary and cultural accomplishments. A giant of his time, Chesterton continues to live large in the imaginations of 21st-century listeners. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Robertson Dean. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/blak/010615/bk_blak_010615_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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Wordcatcher: An Odyssey into the World of Weird and Wonderful Words , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 433min

Who knew that the great country of Canada is named for a mistake? How about "bedswerver", the best Elizabethan insult to hurl at a cheating boyfriend?By exploring the delightful back stories of the 250 words in Wordcatcher, listeners will be lured by language and entangled in etymologies. Author Phil Cousineau takes us on a tour into the obscure territory of word origins with great erudition and endearing curiosity. The English poet W. H. Auden was once asked to teach a poetry class, and when 200 students applied to study with him, he only had room for 20 of them. When asked how he chose his students, he said he picked the ones who actually loved words. So too, with this book - it takes a special wordcatcher to create a treasure chest of remarkable words and their origins, and any word lover will relish the stories that Cousineau has discovered. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Jack Chekijian. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/acx0/000271/bk_acx0_000271_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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Selections from Across Two Novembers: A Bibliographic Year , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 387min

A masterful abridgement of the 2017 Across Two Novembers, this book preserves the erudition, poignancy, and occasional quirkiness of the original. It cuts out the lengthy bibliography and some of the daily journal entries, but one is never left wondering what might be missing when a day is skipped. Mentions and fine reviews of dozens of books share the stage with the more personal details. From the preface to this edition: An Amazon reviewer described my 2017 book, Across Two Novembers: A Year in the Life of a Blind Bibliophile, as reminiscent of that famous diary kept by Samuel Pepys. While surprised and truly flattered, I wondered if subconsciously he was giving me some advice. Pepys wrote a masterful account of nearly a decade in his life. But who listens long nowadays? Hence this abridgement. I hope this glimpse of my year with only the highlights included will give you a taste, yet be as satisfying as the original, unabridged version. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Adam Barr. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/acx0/206316/bk_acx0_206316_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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Simply Hitchcock , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 350min

From Dial M for Murder and Vertigo to North by Northwest, Psycho and The Birds, Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) made some of the most memorable thrillers in the history of cinema. Acclaimed for both his daring artistic innovations and his irrepressible showmanship, Hitchcock blended suspense, humor, and psychologically unsettling themes to create an extraordinary body of work.In Simply Hitchcock, author and movie critic David Sterritt explores the celebrated director’s entire career, from its beginnings in the British silent film industry to its glory days in Hollywood. He shows Hitchcock as a consummate artist who dealt with deep existential and psychological issues, as well as a mischievous prankster who loved playing tricks on the audience and never missed a chance to pull a dead rabbit out of a hat.With wit and erudition, Simply Hitchcock paints a comprehensive portrait of a brilliant and complex man, who not only made indelible films, but also succeeded in establishing himself as the most instantly recognizable movie director of all time. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Jack Wynters. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/acx0/100488/bk_acx0_100488_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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The World of the Rings: Language, Religion, and Adventure in Tolkien , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 370min

Jared Lobdell examines Tolkien's methods and his worldview by following the thread of three influences: the Edwardian adventure story, the science of philology, or comparative languages, and Roman Catholic theology. The "Edwardian mode" of adventure story (King Solomon's Mines, The Lost World) is one in which a small group of Englishmen make an expedition to foreign parts and find supernatural terrors awaiting them, finally returning home, mission accomplished. The architecture and narrative style of these adventure stories is followed completely in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien's towering erudition in ancient Germanic and Celtic languages helps to explain his successful use of a mixture of period styles in his storytelling, as well as his amazing facility coining memorable names. Although Tolkien's stories betray a strong Christian conception of virtue and suffering, his Catholic background raises difficult problems for understanding the tales, with their heroes who are basically irreligious. Lobdell pursues many subtle clues to arrive at a balanced answer. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Stuart Appleton. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/acx0/076375/bk_acx0_076375_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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City Boy: My Life in New York During the 1960s and '70s , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 571min

In the New York of the 1970s, in the wake of Stonewall and in the midst of economic collapse, you might find the likes of Jasper Johns and William Burroughs at the next cocktail party, and you were as likely to be caught arguing Marx at the New York City Ballet as cruising for sex in the warehouses and parked trucks along the Hudson. This is the New York that Edmund White portrays in City Boy: a place of enormous intrigue and artistic tumult. Combining the no-holds-barred confession and yearning of A Boy's Own Story with the easy erudition and sense of place of The Flaneur, this is the story of White's years in 1970s New York, bouncing from intellectual encounters with Susan Sontag and Harold Brodkey to erotic entanglements downtown to the burgeoning gay scene of artists and writers. It's a moving, candid, brilliant portrait of a time and place, full of encounters with famous names and cultural icons. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Robert Blumenfeld. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/adbl/018640/bk_adbl_018640_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, Hörbuch, Digital, 398min

With uncommon humanity, candor, wit, and erudition, National Book Award-winner Andrew Solomon takes the listener on a journey of incomparable range and resonance into the most pervasive of family secrets. The Noonday Demon examines depression in personal, cultural, and scientific terms. Drawing on his own struggles with the illness and interviews wit fellow sufferers, doctors and scientists, policymakers and politicians, drug designers and philosophers, Solomon reveals the subtle complexities and sheer agony of the disease. He confronts the challenge of defining the illness and describes the vast range of available medications, the efficacy of alternative treatments, and the impact the malady has had on various demographic populations around the world and throughout history. He also explores the thorny patch of moral and ethical questions posed by emerging biological explanations for mental illness. The depth of human experience Solomon chronicles, the range of his intelligence, and his boundless curiosity and compassion will change the listener's view of the world. Language: English. Narrator: Andrew Solomon. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/sans/002199/bk_sans_002199_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 101min

By the author of the modern classic The Black Swan, this collection of aphorisms and meditations expresses his major ideas in ways you least expect. The Bed of Procrustes takes its title from Greek mythology: the story of a man who made his visitors fit his bed to perfection by either stretching them or cutting their limbs. It represents Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s view of modern civilization’s hubristic side effects - modifying humans to satisfy technology, blaming reality for not fitting economic models, inventing diseases to sell drugs, defining intelligence as what can be tested in a classroom, and convincing people that employment is not slavery. Playful and irreverent, these aphorisms will surprise you by exposing self-delusions you have been living with but never recognized. With a rare combination of pointed wit and potent wisdom, Taleb plows through human illusions, contrasting the classical values of courage, elegance, and erudition against the modern diseases of nerdiness, philistinism, and phoniness. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Sean Pratt. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/gdan/000480/bk_gdan_000480_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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